LouFest 2014: Blackberry Smoke

You might be a modern-day musical pessimist if you have said any of the following in the past year:

1. It’s all been done before.

2. Everything sounds like everything else.

3. There is literally no good, current music out today.

If you find yourself suffering from these symptoms, we prescribe a heavy, rockin’ dose of Blackberry Smoke.

For about 14 years now, like a down-home Southern remedy, Blackberry Smoke has been healing the music scene with a radical way of standing out—staying simple.

They're simply Southern, which, according to vocalist/guitarist Charlie Starr, combines all the grittiest and most authentic genres. The band isn’t trying to push any narcissistic multi-personality complex on its fans. It’s just playing its Southern alternative country with as much soul as it can muster.

Blackberry Smoke is incredibly humble. This is no doubt a product of the many years it’s spent in the industry working hard to create honest music. The fact that the members aren’t 20-somethings anymore, Starr says, is something they’ve successfully made the band’s fans aware of. With an age range from 39 to 50, Blackberry Smoke knows what it’s doing. That doesn’t mean the members don’t also binge watch Game of Thrones and True Blood on the tour bus like any self-respecting youth.

As any good Southern rock band does, this one has plenty of drinkin’ songs and drivin’ songs. But, unlike a lot of today’s Southern bands, this one isn’t necessarily a “radio” band.

Starr pictures their music as more suitable for album tracks or touring tunes. “There are tons of people who will go sing a cheesy song to sell millions of copies just because it’s popular,” Starr explains. “Personally, I think that’s horseshit. But cheese will sell ’til the end of time. A lot of people will forfeit integrity to gain success. We are not those people.”

Blackberry Smoke doesn’t have what Starr calls a “world takeover plan,” but it does have a mission to obliterate any decision that would cause them shame. The only decisions in that category are ones that would make the fans unhappy or the band unhappy musically.

“I’m sure there are people who have really felt fulfillment doing something they don’t want to do in order to gain fans,” Starr says. “But to them I would say, are you really gaining fans or are you just being part of the pop culture phenomenon? That’s what I would call getting into deep water.”

Because of social media, Starr says there aren’t any secrets about the band that fans far and wide couldn’t figure out. Technology has been great for them, as Blackberry Smoke has evolved with changing musical times. For instance, the lyrics that Starr used to scribble on cigarette packs, he can now record into his iPhone at any moment. After all, inspiration can strike anywhere.

“It’s a funny idea,” he says, “to write songs in your home or on your tour bus that people will purchase and listen to in their homes or where they go each day. It’s a straaange business we’re in, for sure.”